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Presupposition and Dissociation in Discourse: a Corpus Study

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Presupposition and Dissociation in Discourse: a Corpus Study View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by AIR Universita degli studi di Milano Argumentation (2007) 21:361–378 Ó Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s10503-007-9058-7 Presupposition and Dissociation in Discourse: A Corpus Study CHIARA DEGANO Department of Contemporary Languages and Cultures Universita` degli Studi di Milano p.zza Indro Montanelli 1, Sesto San Giovanni Milan 20099 Italy E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: This paper aims at combining different theoretical and methodological approaches for the analysis of discourse, focusing in particular on argumentative struc- tures. At a first level an attempt is made to include argumentation in critical discourse analysis in order to extend the analysis of interaction between ‘‘structures of discourse’’ and ‘‘structures of ideologies’’ to higher levels of language description. At a second level the study will integrate the qualitative approaches of critical discourse analysis and argumentation theory with the quantitative tools of corpus linguistics, so that the analysis can be carried out on a representative amount of texts and in a more systematic way. Even though corpus linguistics tends to be focused on meanings localized at the level of words, while argumentative structures stretch out through longer units of text, an integration can be attempted by circumscribing the enquiry to those aspects of argumentation which are signalled by indicators, and are therefore electronically retrievable. In particular, this paper investigates the use of dissociation and presupposition in a corpus of newspaper articles published in the run up to the war on Iraq. Both structures respond to retriev- ability criteria while being powerful instruments to convey ideologically oriented messages. KEY WORDS: corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, dissociation, presupposi- tion, press, war 1. INTRODUCTION This paper is part of a broader project, which explores the possibility of combining the qualitative approach of critical discourse analysis with the quantitative methodology of corpus linguistics. The aim is to propose an integrated model of analysis which benefits both from the interest of CDA for the modalities through which language represents and constructs reality, and from corpus linguistics’ concern for a rigor- ous description of language, based on a representative sample of data. In particular this paper will give an account of how presuppositions and dissociations were used in the discourse of preparation to the war on Iraq which took shape in the British1 press from January 2002, 362 CHIARA DEGANO when Bush delivered his ‘‘axis-of-evil speech’’, to the outbreak of the war itself, through the analysis of a corpus of newspaper articles2 which has been built for the purpose of this study. The first hypothesis for the present study is that the integrated model I propose can be applied also to higher structures of discourse, such as argumentative moves, which are not so often addressed by CDA, notwithstanding declarations of intents, and even less by corpus linguistics, due to the fact that the typical tools of such discipline are thought to work at best on the level of words and grammar. The choice of presuppositions and dissociations, among all the possible argumentative aspects, is motivated by the fact that they are signalled by words which act as indicators, and are thus retrievable using the tools of corpus linguistics. The second hypothesis is that the occur- rence of presuppositions and dissociations in a corpus might signal controversial areas of discourse, where argumentative strategies are more or less covertly used, and therefore worthy of closer qualitative analysis. 2. MODEL The rationale behind the original project results from a double inter- est: on the one hand there was an epistemological interest for the modalities through which the press represented the debate about the possibility of a war on Iraq, in line with the scope of critical discourse analysis; on the other hand the focus was methodological, and ad- dressed the issue of how corpus linguistics could help to overcome the limits of CDA, which were pointed out in several occasions by differ- ent scholars. One first reason of complaint is that the strong political commitment of critical discourse analysts, aimed at unveiling the role of language in maintaining existing power relations to the advantage of dominant groups, has a negative influence in terms of methodologi- cal rigorousness (Widdowson, 1995). In particular, some interpreta- tions of the texts are seen to rely more on an ideological basis than on a sound linguistic analysis, and apart from that the relation between discourse and grammar is often uncertain. The second reason concerns the way texts are selected, which often translates into the fact that analyses are carried out on small samples of text which are chosen ad hoc, because they allow to demonstrate pre-constituted interpretative views (Phillips, 1989, p. 8). As suggested by seminal studies which advocated an integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches (Hardt-Mautner, 1995; Stubbs, 1996; Garzone and Santulli, 2004), the integration of corpus linguistics and CDA could solve both these problems, starting from criteria for text selection. In the first place, the sample of texts and the range of DISSOCIATION AND PRESUPPOSITION IN DISCOURSE 363 sources should be wide enough to be representative of a certain dis- course type and the same is true for what concerns the range of sour- ces. Second, when it comes to the analysis of the corpus proper, the quantitative approach forces to a closer observation of data, with a view to the frequency with which a certain characteristic occurs, so that uses which can be identified as recurring are considered as more relevant than isolated examples. 3. PRESUPPOSITION AND DISSOCIATIONS The two structures which have been selected for analysis present a twofold reason of interest. On the one hand, they add to the proposi- tional content, which is explicitly expressed, an evaluative component, which is not physically coded by language, but which is conveyed thanks to the background knowledge and the beliefs shared by the participants. More specifically, this added evaluative component re- sults from the fact that the speaker implicitly attaches different values to related aspects, one being judged more positive or more relevant than the other. Because it is formulated in such a covert way, this form of evaluation is less likely to raise criticism on the part of the reader, and has therefore a high potential for influencing public opinion. With regard to this Thompson and Hunston (2001, p. 9) state that ‘‘the less obtrusively the evaluation is placed in the clause, the more likely it is to successfully manipulate the reader’’. On the same topic, Ducrot (1972, p. 6)3, with reference to presupposition, says: Every explicit statement becomes, for the very fact of being explicit, an object of possible discussion. All that is stated can be contradicted […]. The formulation of an idea is the first and decisive step towards it being put into discussion. On the other hand both presuppositions and dissociations can be retrieved electronically within a corpus of large amounts of texts, be- cause they are associated with specific indicators. Of course, the corre- spondence between indicator and structure is not automatic, but the output of a query can be scrolled manually, in order to retain only the relevant occurrences. The discussion will now move on to deal with each of the two structures. 3.1. Presupposition A form of pragmatic inference, presupposition is defined by Levinson starting from the meaning the term is given in everyday language, that is ‘‘any kind of background assumption against which an action, the- ory, expression or utterance makes sense or is rational’’ (1983, p. 168). In a ‘‘technical’’ sense, however, it is possible to talk of presupposition 364 CHIARA DEGANO only in those cases in which inferences ‘‘seem at last to be built into linguistic expressions4, and which can be isolated using specific linguis- tic tests (especially, traditionally, ‘constancy under negation’)’’ (Ibidem). To illustrate how presupposition works, Levinson quotes the exam- ple ‘‘John managed to stop in time’’, which presupposes ‘‘John tried to stop in time’’. As for the ‘‘constancy under negation’’ requisite, it is satisfied when the presupposed information stays true even if the verb is negated, as can be seen in the following example: John didn’t manage to stop in time John tried to stop in time (Ibidem) However, even if presuppositions are semantically triggered, their meaning potential is not achieved just on the semantic level, but on the contrary the context plays an important role, giving presupposi- tions a pragmatic value. With reference to the previous example, the presupposition is built into the word ‘‘manage’’, but it is the context, for example the attribution of responsibility in a car accident, which makes this statement relevant and evaluative. Stalkaner (1973, 2002), among others, has emphasised the pragmatic nature, as opposed to the semantic nature, of presupposition. Phenomena such as the well- known ‘‘the present king of France is bald’’, which presupposes that France has a king, are defined in semantic terms as follows: A sentence S presupposes that u if and only if S is either true or false only if it is true that u. On the other hand, according to Stalnaker presupposition should be seen as a relation ‘‘between a speaker and a proposition’’ (1973, p. 447) rather than as a relation between propositions themselves, as entailed in the semantic definition. The important aspect is what the speaker takes for granted when s/he uses certain sentences, the back- ground of knowledge or beliefs which s/he thinks is shared by the par- ticipants in the communicative exchange. From this perspective, a better definition of presupposition could be as follows: A speaker presupposes that P at a given moment in a conversation just in case he is disposed to act, in his linguistic behaviour, as if he takes the truth of P for granted, and as if he assumes that his audience recognizes that he is doing so (Stalnaker, 1973, p.
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